Fabrics for use as wall coverings, furniture coverings, art works, decorations, and the like, have been known for many years, the broadest form being printed fabrics that are used as wall or bed coverings. Tufted fabrics, such as those made by a needle point, hook, or latch process, have also been found attractive as wall decorations, furniture coverings, and for similar such uses. For actual wall coverings which are glued to the wall, grass cloth of adhesive-backed designer cloth are often used. The current wall covering fabrics are intended only as wall coverings where the current tufted fabrics, such as a hooked picture, are intended only as picture-like decorations. Neither the current wall coverings, nor the tufted fabrics affords any insulating effect for the wall and the room and are not applied in a way as to produce a patterned design effect.
In U.S. Pat. No. 3,819,465, issued June 25, 1974, in the name of Parsons et al., a non-woven textile product is disclosed wherein the visible surface of the textile is a series of arch-like ridges connected together to give a corrugated textured surface that can be used for automotive floor covering, upholstering and clothing.
The U.S. Pat. No. 3,347,736, issued Oct. 17, 1967, in the name of C. R. Sissons, shows a fabric made by needling through a batt of non-woven staple fibers upon which a hessian layer has been laid. The needling produced a high proportion of fibers oriented in a direction perpendicular to the plane of the hessian and extend through the hessian. Passing the needled hessian and batt through a boiling liquid dye causes the fibers to crimp and lead to an efflorescence of the tufts to produce mushroom-shaped structures. The mushrooming of the fibers produces a dense pile surface covering completely the hessian and base structure.
The Sudell U.S. Pat. No. 2,235,732, issued Mar. 18, 1941, shows fabric having a backing web, such as heavy duck, which is tufted in rows with the web in the spaces between the tufted rows being covered by abutting pile warps. The resulting fabric has the appearance of rows of adjacent tufts with a row of pile warps between the spaced rows of tufts with the backing web or duck completely covered.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,187,469 to Carragher, issued Jan. 16, 1940, U.S. Pat. No. 257,395 to Skinner, issued May 2, 1882, and U.S. Pat. No. 2,517,529 to Stanley, issued Aug. 1, 1950, show web or net-type backing materials with spaced tufts affixed thereto. In each patent the only backing is the web or net and the tufts are separate material applied independently thereto.
The present invention is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems as set forth above.